Hello, I have tried most of the ubuntu distros. and then worked with Debian, and now will stay with Vector. I like Vector because it configured itself very nicely to my laptop and to my daughters very old Dell (that was story in itself...). But overall I think I work with the graphical side of Linux fairly well and the command line is where I am lacking. My biggest frustration is trying to download a Linux applications and then installing it. It was so much easier in Debian!! . I have tried a few times and have not been successful yet. I have been able to find most applications in the Gslapt package manager.

Installing the apps you want, as following:- Openup a terminal (Konsole, Xterm, ...)- In the terminal you have to become root by typing: su- Then you only need to move to where you downloaded the packages: cd /home/yourname- If you want to list everything in there: ls- You see the package you want to install: installpkg mypackage.tgz Some other useful command: upgradepkg -i mypackage.tgz, removepkg mypackage.tgz- Test your installed app by entering the name in the cli afterwards. If any dependencies aren't met, the terminal will tell you so.

Before you go out to Linuxpackages.net or Slacky.eu you may want to see if the packages you need are in our testing repository. As you've pointed out it's a lot easier if you can just use gslapt -- just as easy as Debian/Ubuntu, IMHO. Right now we have a HUGE backlog of packages in testing waiting to be moved to the other repositories.

To enable testing go into gslapt, and from the Edit menu select Preferences -> Sources. Testing is about the fifth one down. You should also enable patches while you're at it. The only reason it isn't enabled by default is an error in the stock configuration file. gslapt will then ask if you want to update your package list. Click "yes" and a whole bunch of new choices will appear in gslapt.

The only caveat is that testing does live up to it's name and upgrading your system with testing enabled is a bad idea that will likely cause some breakage. Just go back into Edit->Preferences->Sources and uncheck testing when you're done and update again.

Thanks for the responses, I will plug away at it. I did find the documentation and i will spend some time on that for now. I really need to find out how this file system is so I can find things that are installed but not showing in the menu.

I think many of the applications you install will be found in /usr/bin...although this is not Always the case. If you can not find what you need in testing as mentioned you may try one of the slackware12 sources in the same location...many of these work also...darkstar seems to have the best selection but that is only my opinion at this time...best of luckcheers

Ye[, I'm a big fan of using slapt-get at the command line. To me it's faster and easier than gslapt most of the time. I recognize some people prefer the GUI and since the GUI was mentioned I gave instructions using gslapt. You can also enable testing and patches by editing /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc and removing the # from the lines which list patches and testing. Then running

Quote

slapt-get --update

Enables the modified repository list.

I generally have found that the packages in slacky.eu and linuxpackages.net are of variable quality. linuxpackages.net, in particular, has had some really questionable stuff lately, hence my advice to use genuine Vector Linux packages whenever possible. The repository has been growing steadily with new stuff added pretty much every day.

I do understand that switching from one package management system to another has a bit of a learning curve. Once you get used to Vector Linux it really is quite comparable to Debian's apt system in functionality. The main thing we're still lacking is dependency checking when you remove packaging. If that is ever added to slapt-get and gslapt we'll have tools as good as any distro out there.